#180 Juliana Turns Ten

Juliana had her 10th birthday party on Sunday and had six friends join her for bunco and ice cream sundaes. Among the international guest list were Cori (IL), Cate (TX), Keaton (Canada), Kenzie (CA), Sophia (MI), and Jemma (Austrailia). Bunco was a late breaking idea for a party activity and Juliana's friends seemed to love it. Maria (Peoria) got to stay and party with the big girls while the men were kicked out and sent to the Suzhou bowling alley to entertain ourselves. We had a good time too.

It is hard to believe that Juliana is already 10 years old. It would make me feel old except that I still remember my 10th birthday party as if it were last week. We hosted it at my house in Colonie, New York. Honored guests were my childhood friends Chris C, David D, Scott H, Felice T, and of course, my brother Chris. Number ten was a big birthday - first with double digits. I hope Juliana remembers her 10th birthday as fondly as I remember mine.

The boys were invited to return for the ice cream sundae portion of the program. You can see Joseph, Marco, and Joseph's buddy Owen in the group shot.

#179 Piano Swap

The piano that Kathleen bought a few weeks ago did not settle well in the Cazzato house and has been traded for an identical replacement. Helen, the piano teacher, and her truck driver showed up on Saturday morning to trade the old for the new.

Since it takes more than Helen and one Chinese truck driver to move a piano, Helen quickly rounded up some of the guards from the Jin Shui Wan commando unit and got them to load and unload.

You can see that I helped by recording the moment on film (or digital memory card.)

#176 Flesh Eating Fish

Today we had another weekend outing with the guys from work. Bill organized a trip to the Landmark Spa which offers a foot massage with a unique sort of "pretreatment". For pretreatment, your feet are soaked in a bath of warm water along with several hundred small fish which eat the dead skin off your feet. This was a one of a kind experience - one of those things we'll miss someday when we are back in Peoria.

You can see the whole crew, Camilo, Paul, Bill, Paul, Stanley, and me. We are an international Caterpillar crew of 2 Americans, 2 Brits, and 2 Brazilians. It was good fun and every man agreed it was the best Valentines Day ever.

There were quite a few good pictures from this event, so I posted a Fish Feet album at Snapfish.com.

#175 Marco Lost Tooth

Good old Marco lost a tooth this week biting into a strawberry.  It must have been hanging by a thread because strawberries are soft and nicely in season right now in China.  I think it is his first lost tooth and he was crushed this morning when he realized that the tooth fairy didn't make it here last night.  Let's hope she finds her way to Suzhou tonight.

#174 Blog Restored

I was quite surprised to find on Friday night that this blog site hosted by Google's Blogger / Blogspot had been deleted because it was identified as a "possible spam site". I spent some time Saturday morning combing through the forums on problems with Blogger and found dozens of people who have had the same problem - sites that are clearly not spam are shut down by Google through some automated search process.

Thankfully the site was restored later on Saturday and the Cazzato Family Blog is back in business. I was quite distressed to have the year and a half worth of entries disappear. There is no live support or direct communication available from Google. This lack of direct support is surprising for a supposed world-class outfit like Google.

The lesson learned is to back up the files and do not trust a free service like Blogger to take care of you

Welcome back to the restored Cazzato Family Blog site.

#173 Custom Clothing

Hoi An town is riddled with shops that offer low cost, custom-made clothing of all kinds. We visited one such shop above and bought each member of the family an article of custom clothing. The boys got shirts and the girls got dresses. You can see some of us getting measured by the sales-lady and Joseph posing in one tailor shops that makes things happen. The final picture shows the Cazzato men in our custom tailored Vietnamiese sports shirts.

#172 Hoi An

From Saigon, we took a one hour flight to stay at a beach town called Hoi An. Hoi An is a small city on the coast of the South China Sea with a population of about 100,000. The town is on an intercoastal waterfront and the resort at which we stayed is on the beach. Hoi An is a very charming historic port town with many restaurants, knick knack shops, and custom clothing stores. It is a fun and interesting place to walk around and seems to be a favorite of backpackers and groups of young people seeing Asia on the cheap.

Our resort was quite nice, though the pool and ocean were a bit chilly for swimming. This did not, however, keep our kids from spending eight hours or more each day in the water. The pictures above show the beach at our resort and some scenes from the town of Hoi An.

A full set of pictures from our Hoi An stay can be seen by visiting Snapfish.com.

#171 Mekong Delta

Day 3 in Vietnam was spent in an area south of Saigon called the Mekong Delta. The Mekong River is one of the worlds great rivers and it ends at the South China Sea in an extensive river delta. This area houses a large number of rice fields which help make Vietnam the third largest exporter of rice in the world.

Our tour consisted of a boat ride to several different islands in the delta where we ate tropical fruit, saw local musicians perform, watched coconut candy being made, toured a small village, held a six foot python, and rode a cart pulled by a small Vietnamese horse. Undoubtedly some tourist kitsch involved here, but a very enjoyable day overall. We had some very memorable moments.

More pictures posted at Snapfish

#170 Cu Chi Tunnels

We visited a fascinating area north of Saigon called the Cu Chi region which houses an extensive network of underground tunnels used by Vietnamese guerilla fighters since the 1940s. These tunnels were an integral part of the Viet Cong strategy to strike and evade the American forces during the Vietnam War.

Tunnel entrances were nearly impossible to detect and were extensively booby trapped with hidden pits, bamboo spikes, and tripwired grenades. The multilevel tunnel networks went up to 40 feet underground and included weapons storage, sleeping quarters, meeting rooms, and cooking facilities.

Many of the access ports were too small for a normal sized American to fit through and within the tunnels there were dead-ends, water filled u-traps, and hidden access to lower levels. We traversed a 20 meter length underground. There was no way to turn around and of course, it was perfectly dark. The network of tunnels extends over 250 km. I was claustrophobic and eager to get out after 10 meters - and no one was shooting at me !

#169 Saigon

We are in the midst of our 10 day trip to Vietnam for our Chinese New Year holiday. Our first stop is Ho Chi Minh City - the city formerly known as Saigon. We are spending three days in Saigon with lots of sightseeing and shopping on the agenda. Kathleen arranged for a tour guide. His name is Long and he is the smallest adult man I have ever met - he probably doesn't weigh more than Marco.

Above you can see some shots of a Saigon side street, city hall built by the French during the colonial era, and photos of eating the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup called "pho". Also shown is a picture of a Chinese temple which was absolutely mobbed with people as today was the day of the lunar new year.

HCMC is quite lively and busy. The motorbike traffic is 1000X times denser than in China - and these motorbikes are petrol fueled. Also interesting is the number of overhead wires on the streets - literally hundreds of wires between each concrete telephone pole. Some are so numerous that they hind the signs of the businesses behind them.

I have posted more pictures at Snapfish.